Rebranded Website Uses a Forward Slash /at End of URS-Is This Considered a Redirect?
-
Our website was rebranded and relaunched. The old site did not use a / at the end of the URL. The site uses a forward slash at the end of the URL.
My developer claims that this makes no difference, that in Google's eyes this is meaningless. My concern is that link juice will be lost because this necessitates a redirect. Links that were developed in the last few months now are redirected to the identical domain, but with a backslash at the end.
Is this something to be concerned about or is it meaningless?
Thanks,
Alan -
301 redirects will almost assuredly be utilised to keep this maneuver SEO-friendly. but wait! 301 redirects fail to translate 'most' of the SEO authority from one page to another, in two key situations. If the content is too dissimilar on the destination URL, 301s can fail to port authority across
For you, this won't be a big issue as (from the sounds of it) the pages will be almost identical, byte for byte. The new pages may be very, very slightly larger due to having source code that contains more instances of the character "/" but that's not something which would phase Google at all
Another situation where 301s can fail to move all the SEO authority across is when redirect chains occur. But you're just 301-ing "non trailing /" URLs to "trailing /" URLs, so it shouldn't be a problem right? Hmmm there are ways you could come unstuck here
Let's imagine we have a hypothetical retail site called "buymyproducts.com"
Let's imagine that a few years ago, the site used to be on HTTP (insecure) and has moved over to HTTPS (encrypted)
All pages were influenced by a HTTPS-injecting redirect, let's create and example:
http://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product
was 301 redirected to
https://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product (with HTTPS)
That redirect rule now sits within the web.config or .htaccess file and waits for insecure requests, redirecting as appropriate
Now we want a new redirect rule, and it will affect the page like this:
https://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product
will be 301 redirected to
https://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product/ (with a trailing slash)
That seems fine, but when the oldest architecture is queried, you'll end up with redirect chaining like this:
A) http://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product
will be redirected to
B) https://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product (with HTTPS)
which will then be redirected to
C) https://buymyproducts.com/product-category/product/ (with HTTPS and a trailing slash)
... so as you can see, your redirects will begin to chain unless you foresee that problem up-front and write 'more complex' redirect rules that just connect A to C whilst entirely skipping B.
If the site existed on the oldest architecture (no trailing slash, insecure / HTTP) for the longest time (say 7 out of 10 years) then it's likely that many of the best links will still be hitting the very oldest architecture in terms of link destinations. Those backlinks won't translate into SEO authority for your site (very well) if your redirects begin to chain-up
To stop yourself from losing large chunks of legacy-authority, you'd have to do the redirects really well and ensure that your developer's rules do not ever begin to chain. If they are confident that they can avoid this chaining by writing much more complex redirect rules then go for it. If not, hold off
-
-
It’s the same domain?
What was the changed about the site structure other than forcing a forward slash?
I would ask your dev to do a search and replace on the URLs putting them back to non “/“ then 301 t force a non forward slash you got a pick one or the other.
But if I was making a new site from scratch I would force use a forward slash.
Hope this helps,
Tom
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?
Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag0 -
Should you use www?
The age old question. Should I use "www." for a brand new content site assuming my goal (and most goals starting out) is to get to millions of visits per month? Does the community agree with, http://www.yes-www.org/why-use-www/? The only reason I question it honestly, since most high traffic companies in my search use www., is because moz doesn't. Thanks for your help. Seems it would be quite a pain to go back once you have a lot of traffic.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mag7770 -
What is the best comments system / plugin for websites
Hi, What is the best comments system / plugin for websites that not harm seo Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut0 -
Redirecting Old Websites to New Websites
Hi Everyone, We are about to take down a number of websites in favour of a new singular B2B hub and would be looking to redirect all of these sites to the new home. For SEO purposes, what would be the best way to do this? Due to the difference in setups and scale of the site, it would be difficult to correctly match up each page to page between the sites for individual 301 redirects. Could someone advise on the best plan of action? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chbiz0 -
If a website Uses <select>to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
If a website Uses <select> to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
Copying my Facebook content to website considered duplicate content?
I write career advice on Facebook on a daily basis. On my homepage users can see the most recent 4-5 feeds (using FB social media plugin). I am thinking to create a page on my website where visitors can see all my previous FB feeds. Would this be considered duplicate content if I copy paste the info, but if I use a Facebook social media plugin then it is not considered duplicate content? I am working on increasing content on my website and feel incorporating FB feeds would make sense. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Infinite Redirect Loop without trailing slash, please help
I've been searching for an answer all day, I can't seem to figure this out. When I Fetch my blog as Google(http://www.mysite.com/blog) WITHOUT a trailing slash at the end, I get this error: The page seems to redirect to itself. This may result in an infinite redirect loop **HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently** When I Fetch my blog as Google WITH the trailing slash at the end(http://www.mysite.com/blog/), it is fine without errors. When I pull it up in a browser comes up fine both with and without the trailing slash. My .htaccess file in the root directory contains this: RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | debc
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.htm\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.htm$ http://www.mysite.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L] My .htaccess file in the blog directory contains this: BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^./index.php/. [NC]
RewriteRule ^index.php/(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/blog/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Do I have something incorrectly coded in these .htaccess files that could be causing this? Or is there something else I should look at? Thank you for any help!!0 -
Purpose of a Blog in a website
How internal blog or external blog is helpful in SEO?why it is good to have a site with blog?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000